Author: deimante97

What Marshall McLuhan meant by the term ‘Global Village’ is that the world is closely linked as a massive community through the use of e-media and broadcasting such as social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), TV, telephone etc. Also, the world is seen as economically, socially and politically interdependent meaning that the countries are dependent on each other for products they cannot produce efficiently for themselves.

I think that ‘The Gamechangers’ TV movie was quite interesting. It clearly showed the two oppositions between the game company and the lawyer. Also, it showed how important media censorship is in creating fairly reviewed games and films for certain age ranges.

Ideologies of ’12 Years a Slave’
There are many messages that the producers are trying to reinforce to the audience through this film. For example:
• Slavery is wrong
• Buying and selling black people as slaves was normal back in the mid 19th century
• Not all white people where bad, some actually liked black people but couldn’t do anything about the slavery
• Black women are constantly abused and raped by their owners
• Black slaves that worked on cotton fields where wiped and treated like animals
• Only black female house maids and kitchen servants where well looked after with nice, clean clothes and good accommodation
• Relationships between white and black was greatly looked down upon
• Owners used the Bible to sanction slavery and it was their ‘Christian duty’ to preach the scripture to their slaves
• There was only a couple of black people that where not slaves and had jobs in sectors such as business, music and drama.

Ideologies of ‘The Theory of Everything’
This film also has many messages that the producers are trying to reinforce to the audience through this film. For example:
• Don’t judge the disabled, not everyone was born this way.
• Love can be very strong, this was shown when the women still cared for the man even through hard times of his illness
• Disability doesn’t stop you from living a normal life, this was shown when he had his own 3 children, wrote his own book and just simply carried on living his day to day life.
• It makes you realize that things happen for a reason and that you just have to take it and just remain positive

Ideologies of ‘The Pursuit of Happiness’
This film is really inspirational and has many different meaningful messages for the audience. For example:
• Working really hard for what you want and not giving up, gets you to where you want to be
• Everyone has a tough moment in their life but you just have to pick yourself up and carry on. This was shown when he couldn’t sell his ‘Bone Density Scanners’ that he invested so much money on, when his wife left him, when he lost his house, bank account and credit cards. Also then he had to sleep on the streets with his little son and go to work for 6th months without getting paid at a stockbrokers company.
• The film shows the importance of a good father figure because as a single father, we see the strong relationship between him and his son and his determination do what is right to protect his son.

These three films are very similar but different as well. For example, the story lines are really different but the effects that they create are nearly the same which is: scared, paranoid, uncomfortable and panicky. However, one film may be scarier or more gruesome than the other which can create a more tense atmosphere.

Also the films have similar characters. They have a couple of survivors but most of the characters typically die which creates suspense and an urge for us to carry on watching the film to see who is actually going to survive. Further more, they all have similar messages which is not to go to strange locations for vacation, not to visit strange new houses without knowing anything about it (even though you have inherited it) or taking in weird kids into your care. In addition, they use exactly the same technology such as make up and special effect to make the film look realistic and as scary as it could be to make the audience feel anxious. They also use similar iconography e.g. blood, monsters as well as similar settings such as woods, unknown locations and weird houses.

Uses and gratification explains why most people watch these films and this is to entertain themselves and to be able to socially interact with people who have already seen these films.

In my opinion, media can have a narrative because a story doesn’t need to have moving images to be explained. For example, a book is a print and can tell a story as it’s narrated through 1st or 3rd person. Also print journalism turns daily life into a story. The story can have a linear structure or it can have flashbacks/flashforwards.